The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) Grand Chamber admitted the expert opinion request of International Genocide and Human Rights Studies Institute, Human Rights Association, Truth Justice Memory Center regarding the effect of Armenian Genocide discourse on Armenians in the case of Perinçek vs Switzerland case. The aforementioned request has been submitted on 15 October 2014.
Çelikkan: Real motive is promoting discrimination
Murat Çelikkan from Truth Justice Memory Center claimed bianet that the real reason behind Perinçek’s conviction by Swiss Courts was not denying the “genocide” but his discriminative discourse.
“Considering Perinçek’s statements before and after the trial clearly shows that discrimination and racism are the real motives and they could cause deadly consequences and dangers to Turkey’s Armenian minorities,” he said.
“Denial affects Turkey’s Armenians"
“On the top of everything, ECHR’s Hrant Dink/Turkey verdict points out that the denomination of Armenian Genocide as a lie is linked with the oppression towards Turkey’s Armenians and certain life dangers.
Why is Perinçek’s discourse discriminative?
“In this context,” Çelikkan defends that “Perinçek’s statements are discriminative and racist towards Armenians as his definition of Armenians as ‘traitors’ and ‘aggressor to Turks’ as well as his legitimization of 1915-17 Ottoman massacres overtly, Istanbul 13th High Criminal Court’s leading position to provoke Armenian hatred through the citation of Doğu Perinçek’s terms “psychological war” and the aforementioned court’s other comments on Hrant Dink and other minority murders.
What happened?
In 2007, Lausanne Peace Court convicted Turkey’s Labor Party (IP) Chairman Doğu Perinçek for violating Swiss Penal Code Article 261 on “discrimination based on race” when he said “Armenian Genocide is a worldwide-spread lie”.
Swiss Vaud Appeals Court also declined the motion on the verdict issued by Lausanne Peace Court on Perinçek. Perinçek’s advocate applied to ECHR after reaching no results from the federal court.
In 2013, ECHR ruled that Switzerland violated Perinçek’s freedom of expression with majority vote, finding Perinçek’s conviction reasons insufficient.
“The punishing of opinions with no consensus causes a bouncing effect on their discussion,” the court ruled.
On January 28, the grand chamber of ECHR reopened the case. While Perinçek was represented by Mehmet Cengiz and Christian Laurent Pech; Switzerland by Daniel Thürer; Turkey by Stefan Talmon and Armenia by Amal Alamuddin Clooney and Geoffrey Robertson. (EA/BM)
* Click here to read Swiss Penal Code Article 261 Sentence 3
* Click here to read the European Declaration of Human Rights Article 10
* Click here to read the article in Turkish.
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